Vito’s Social Security Problem

The Staten Island Advance reports that New York’s lone Republican congresssman is already playing defense on Social Security, in a demonstration of how big a headache this could become for House Republicans.

“Let me be clear,” Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) told over 130 seniors at the center. “I do not support the privatization of Social Security, I never have and I never will.”

It seems unlikely he’s defying Bush. Vito has the most loyal voting record of any Republican in the state. Perhaps he just means he won’t use the word “privatization.”

In any case, he was forced to comment in response to a flood of senior citizens’ calls to his office, apparently triggered by a round of anonymous robo-calls warning that Vito would take away their Social Security benefits.

This issue isn’t going away: blogger Josh Marshall, a real player in the grassroots Social Security fight, is taking a look at Vito too.